News

Swiss pension funds and responsible investment

Verfasst am 19. Juni 2016.

Swiss pension funds still treat responsible investment mainly as an activity separate from other aspects of the investment process, rather than fully integrating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) considerations into investment decisions, according to a recent study by ShareAction and WWF Switzerland. This conclusion is based on a survey of the 20 largest pension funds in Switzerland, representing CHF281bn (€253bn) in assets, or around 36% of all Swiss occupational pension funds. Sonia Hierzig, research officer at ShareAction and author of the survey report, said: “The results demonstrate that, whilst the 20 funds we looked at do consider responsible investment, there’s a long way to go to adopt international best practice, particularly when it comes to transparency and climate risk management.” Ivo Knoepfel of onValues was part of the panel of experts that provided guidance for developing the survey methodology.